I started a basic install of Exchange 2013 on Windows 2012 on a network with an existing Exchange 2007 (SBS 2008) org.
Things went well with prerequisites and AD Prep but the actual install ended up freezing up. I ran it on a VM with 2GB RAM and all I can guess is that services couldn't start etc with only that much RAM. I did the install through a remote desktop session and when I returned after kicking off the install process that session was completely frozen up with a black screen. All I could do was reboot the server. I noticed messages that implied the completely new/blank Exchange install was unhappy with 2GB so I raised it to 10GB, but still things just didn't work. Most significantly I couldn't even load the Management Console replacement web site. I just would get 404 not found.
Thinking the original install never completed properly I simply deleted the VM, re-created a new one with the same config (and 10GB RAM) with the same name, joined the domain, installed pre-requisites and re-started the install, but now I'm getting"Exchange Server in an inconsistent state. Only disaster recovery mode is available. Please use Setup /m:RecoverServer"...
Of course now I get other errors because "Disaster Recovery setup needs access to the mailbox database drive (prior install location)" etc. and of course I have no backups or anything because there was nothing but deployed install media on the prior server.
How do I re-install? Do I need to clean up AD references to the prior install?
Regards,
Steve Ware